Temporary Migrant Labor: African Forced Labor and Guestworker Programs Across the Atlantic

Since the early twentieth century, and especially after World War II, the United States and European colonial powers turned themselves into countries importing temporary migrant labor to meet the labor demands for their post-war reconstruction. This chapter examines three such temporary labor mobility endeavors: forced African labor deployment by European powers during both World Wars, and the guestworker programs implemented by the US and European nations after WWII. The chapter also examines another major player in the temporary employment of migrant labor—the influx of migrant labor into oil-exporting Gulf nations since the 1970s. While these processes generally exhibited greater humanity compared to prior slavery and indentured servitude eras, in many cases they display many of the characteristics that the United Nations attribute to ‘forced labor’ and ‘human trafficking’.